Reviews with content warning for Gore - Dreadnought

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

overbooked207's review

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

📖 Dreadnought & Sovereign by April Daniels Book Review 📖

3rd and 4th books of August 2022 and 20th and 21st of the year:

“I see a world that is terrified of me. Terrified of someone who would reject manhood. Terrified of a girl who knows who she is and what she's capable of. They are small, and they are weak, and they will not hurt me ever again.” - April Daniels.

These books have fantastic trans, lesbian, queer, abuse survivor, mental health/illness, anxiety, PTSD, and more representation, great writing and world-building, and inventive, well-written, and brutal action/fight scenes! If there’s anything I love in books, it’s complex characters, and this series' main character, Danny, is an especially amazing and complex character. The book showcases her bravery, power, resilience, anger, strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between in such a good way, and the characters felt so real. I liked the second book even more than the first, and I definitely recommend picking these up, especially if you love superhero movies or shows like The Boys, Invincible, Umbrella Academy, etc.!

TWs for Dreadnought: transphobia, slurs, homophobia, deadnaming, misgendering, misogyny, medical content, violence, parental/domestic/child abuse, homelessness/being kicked out of the house for being trans/queer, anxiety, death, dysphoria, cursing, bullying, blood, body horror, alcohol, alcoholism, self-image issues/negative internal voice, PTSD, sexual harassment, toxic friendship, and description of injuries.

TWs for Sovereign: transphobia, slurs, homophobia, alcoholism, self-harm, deadnaming, misgendering, misogyny, misandry, medical content/trauma, violence, vomit, abuse, cursing, bullying, blood, body horror, alcohol, alcoholism, homelessness, ableism, kidnapping, torture, imprisonment, anxiety, self-image issues/negative internal voice, PTSD, mass death, and description of injuries📚🎧🦸‍♀️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

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lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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wynterwonderland's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This does a lot of good things as far as trans rep and I'm going to talk about those before I discuss why I don't recommend it as a whole. It handles issues of dysphoria in a realistic way, as well as showing the way that socially transitioning helped Danny experience gender euphoria once the medical side of transitioning was handled by the superpowers. One of the main plotlines deals with domestic abuse from a parent, with an ebb and flow to the verbal abuse which showed how the general pattern of yelling and silence created an overall situation which was worse than any one incident. She doesn't have everything solved by her body being transformed, which provides a narrative opportunity to show transphobia. When depicting scenes with transphobic slurs and other very cruel language it's often first depicted as a summary of what hearing those words made Danny feel, then later when she's able to unpack it and start dealing with it the reader is told what some of those words were. It helps to center Danny and how she was hurt by misogyny and transphobia before it presents those slurs for the reader.

I like how the world in the book is presented as morally grey, with various factions vying to Danny to join their side. For most of the book it felt like it really was a morally grey world, but I was disappointed that towards the end it seems to pick a specific side. I hope the sequel proves me wrong on that, if I decide to read it. Calamity is a great mentor, she's my favorite character. I also like Doctor Impossible but that got trickier as the story progressed. The worldbuilding works well, sketching the idea of this world that is very different from ours because of when the superheroes showed up, but recognizable enough because of what was chosen to parallel our real developments.

Now for the main reason I don't recommend this: I'm disturbed by the way it handles disability and ableism, both with the casual use of ableist slurs (from characters of all cape factions, so this wasn't just how to mark the villains) and with the treatment of physical disabilities. There’s a disturbing battle scene

where Danny is fighting goons in mech suits, but it turns out they’re embedded in the suits instead of having their organic limbs controlling the suits. One of the goons is someone Danny met earlier and he had all four limbs in that earlier scene, so the implication is that the villain removed his limbs in order to put him in the suit. He also still is on the villain's side while he's in the suit, so I see three possible scenarios: He lost his limbs in some undescribed accident and is being further exploited by the villain he's been helping; His limbs were unwillingly removed by the villain but decided to help them anyway; or He had his limbs were willingly removed by the villain because he believed in the plan so much that he gave up his limbs to get a mech suit. No matter which of the three scenarios is in play, what happens is that the protagonist and supposed hero forcibly removes a quadruple amputee from his mech suit (which is also an assistive device), causing great pain to him, the hero notices that it causes great pain, and then proceeds to do the same thing to the other four amputees in mech suits, narrating each time how much it hurts them to be ripped out of the suits. I'm, frankly, uninterested in trying to hash out exactly what I wish Danny had done differently (though leaving the goon on a roof after removing his assistive device is definitely NOT something I think she should have done), I'm more concerned with how callously this treats multiple disabled characters, both named and unnamed, and how the reveal that this previously-limbed character now has fewer limbs is treated as shocking and horrific. The villain is a cyborg, and exactly which parts of her body are organic or inorganic are described in a way that feels like it's supposed to be disturbing. Finally, there's a friendly character who also loses a limb and expresses feeling like there's nothing to live for now, which, while certainly something a real person in that scenario might express, seems narratively bad in the context of the earlier ableism.

Overall this seems like pretty good handling of trans stuff and domestic abuse by a parent, but mediocre to terrible handling of ableism and disability, and therefore I don't recommend it. Maybe the sequel could win me back, but that won't be enough to make me feel good about this particular book.

Content Warnings

tanouska's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.5

The amount of transphobia in this book is probably realistic, but also very painful to read.

When I read the first parts, I was a bit bleh about the shape Danny transformed in, (the stereotypical smaller, shapely girl form, like girls can't be tall and have big feet and stuff) but as I hoped that was later mentioned and handled very well in the book itself, with it being due to the ideal version that the media portrays, and that people are affected by that ideal, even if they don't want it or even find it absurd. I also liked that the doc immediately put a stop to that 'real girl' bit of thinking. Go doc.
Another thing I liked was that the Main Bad Gal, wasn't also transphobic. Because it the whole 'not because they're evil on one front, they'll be evil on all fronts' and having one good trait (being non-transphobic) doesn't mean they'll be a decent person all over.
The portrayal of Graywitch also kinda ties into that, she'a whitecloak, a so called goodguy, so she should be alright, right? but she's such a transphobe (of the JKR kind, barf) and I just like that this book does show that nothing is black and white and easy in that way.

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forlorn_traveller's review

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adventurous emotional lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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alatarmaia's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. Though the author doesn't shy away from the transphobia Danny faces, ranging from abusive lack of acceptance to terf-y Womyn™ hatred of all men, it's evened out by the other content in the book and Danny's journey to acceptance of both herself, her identity, and all the superhero craziness.

I'm still gonna be sad forever that

they killed Valkyrja....my gal.....buddy....she would have been so good for Danny....

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